


Blue Lights (and a flower crown)

by seaweedredandbrown



Series: Andrew and Beast's spooky adventures: a Spooky October 2016 writing challenge [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Ghosts, Haunted Houses, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-06
Updated: 2016-10-06
Packaged: 2018-08-19 22:20:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8226560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seaweedredandbrown/pseuds/seaweedredandbrown
Summary: When a sudden rainshower forces Andrew and his friend Beast to take shelter in an abandoned asylum, he braces himself for the scariest night of his life. Good thing the ghosts are friendlier than expected.





	

**Author's Note:**

> To prepare for the NaNoWriMo madness, I'll be doing The Writer's Handbook's [Spooky October Writing Challenge](https://thewritershandbook.tumblr.com/twhoctoberchallenge2016). This is day one - prompt: "haunted house" - and it stars Andrew, your average millennial, and his friend Beast, your average non-binary (they/them) anthropomorphic creature of doom.

The cold had not surprised them - nights were always chilly up on the hills, even in summer - but they had not expected the rain.  
Andrew had planned to catch the last great meteor shower of the year and, delighted to discover that Beast was into astronomy, he had invited his new friend along. The anthropomorph kept on surprising him, in good ways: they had sensed the storm coming and had started wrapping up their camping gear in less time than it had taken him to put his camera back into its case.

Then it had been a matter of running for shelter as thunder roared above their heads and drops turned into downpour. It just so happened that this building was the first thing they had found.  
The gates read 'St Jobard’s Mental Hospital' in iron-wrought letters - Andrew thought he might have seen it on his map earlier - and the place looked properly abandoned. Lightning shaped sealed off windows and crumbling walls; the great wooden doors lay torn off their hinges, wide open to the darkness inside.

Although the doorstep was open to wind and a great deal of rain, neither Andrew nor Beast stepped in. The two exchanged one long, meaningful look, each assessing the other. Andrew was absolutely drenched in his denim jacket - the day he chose comfort over aesthetic would be the day his kin laid him down to his final rest - and Beast had rain dripping off their horns in little puddles over their leather-clad shoulders.  
(One of them _had_ to be reasonable in their outfit choices.)

For some time, they stood in silence, Beast squinting his goat-like eyes to try and pierce the darkness inside, Andrew looking up and praying to all the gods he knew of and did not believe in for the sky to clear.  
Alas, gods do not often listen to those who worship them, let alone those who refuse to acknowledge their existence; the sky did not clear, the winds picked up, and the rain poured with increasing strength.

“I’m… I’m very cold,” said Andrew after a while.  
“You’re very cold,” repeated Beast, turning their gaze to him.  
“Yeah, I’m really cold, and yes, alright, this is not exactly where I’d choose to spend the night either, but-” A gust of wind shook him to his core and Beast pushed him inside without another word.

No gates of hell opened under their feet and hooves as they stepped inside, which Andrew counted as a win. He fumbled for his torch while Beast surveyed the place.  
There was no sound inside, save for the rumble of the storm.

“This seems uninhabited,” Beast said as the torch cast its white light on their surroundings. Uninhabited it might have been, but empty it was not.  
Broken furniture was scattered on the molded parquet among debris and trash of all kinds while cobwebs ran along the walls, framing graffiti in their white lace. As he moved the torch around, Andrew caught glimpses of gold panelling still glimmering faintly above peeled wallpaper in between torn paintings.

“Yeah, good. I, uh… I suggest we just stay here? No exploring, no breaking off the group? Especially no breaking off the group, I’ve seen way too many horror movies not to know where that would go?”  
“A most sensible idea,” muttered Beast as they surveyed the hall.

They had better sight than him, of course. And better hearing. And better smell. And they were stronger, what with them having claws and fangs, and everything.  
The more he thought about it, the more Andrew understood why humans shunned anthropomorphs, no matter how heartbreaking that was: it felt safer to oppress what could cut you in two with a snap of their fingers than for them to realise that they could, in fact, cut you in two with a snap of their fingers.

Andrew stopped that train of thought - now was _not_ the time to ramble about social justice - and looked for a spot for them to wait out the storm.  
The floor was dirty and he could not take a step without going over broken glass or animal excrement, but hey, the ceiling was not leaking and no forsaken horror of old had sprung from a dark corner to slice his throat. Yet.  
Small mercies.

Beast joined him and together they set up a makeshift camp between two knocked-down couches that smelled of mold and dead rats. They set their sleeping bags on the floor and lit the little camping stove; soon a little flame rose above the propane tank, providing them with a soft glow and the false promise of warmth.

Andrew sat as close as he could to the stove, rubbing his hands together and looking the other way while Beast took their clothes off and shook their fur dry. 

That was another undeniable advantage anthropomorphs had over poor, lowly humans like him. His hair was going to be an absolute mess, his clothes were drenched and he hadn’t brought a spare set; the mere thought of changing to his pyjamas in this dark and damp place made him shiver even harder than before.  
(What if the terrifying demons that surely dwelled in the basement came to snatch him right as he changed? He could not allow himself to be captured by unfathomable evil in his underwear.)

“I’m sorry,” said Andrew as Beast came back, wearing a dry hoodie - why was he smarter than him as well? That was properly unfair. “I should have checked the weather before we left.”  
“It’s August,” answered Beast as they sat cross-legged next to him, their back against the wall, “it should not be raining so hard so early in the season.” A beat. “Is your camera okay?”  
“Yeah. Yeah it is, thank you.”  
“Good.”  
“Yeah. Would have hated for it to get ruined or something.”  
“Of course.”

They fell into comfortable silence. Shadows were dancing before their eyes, in the flickering light of the flames. They jumped from behind the couches and crawled between rocks and bird corpses, leaping up the walls and cowering on the ceiling.

This would have been a great entrance hall a long time ago, Andrew thought. The rain was falling harder and harder outside - it might have been hailing, even - and drowning all other sounds; but if he focused very, very hard, he could almost hear the heels of the nurses clicking on the parquet and the swift rolling of the wheelchairs.  
He could almost see the patients slowly walking from one window to the next; he could almost smell the flowers in colourful pots near the door, he could almost taste the sparkling water in that bright crystal carafe on the reception desk-

Something scurried past.  
A rodent or, or something else; something that startled Andrew, forcing him to bite down a yelp.

“What- what was that? Did you see that?”  
“Yes, I did. It was a small mouse.”  
“… You really did see it, didn’t you?”  
“Why yes, I did. Why would I lie to you?”  
“I dunno,” grumbled Andrew, “maybe to save me from being too scared or something.”  
“The idea of you, of all people, being scared here, of all places, had never crossed my mind. Not even once.”  
That little taunt earned them a playful nudging of Andrew’s elbow.  
“Hey, no mocking me. I am not two meters tall and, and twice my own weight, alright?” He was giggling, now. It all sounded so stupid. Why was he scared? He was with Beast! “I mean, of course I’m not really feeling it, we’ve been chased by a sudden and rather unnatural storm into an abandoned asylum, it’s the middle of the night and I’m freezing all over, but yeah, no big deal.”  
He rolled his eyes dramatically, but the smile died on his face when he saw how intently his friend was looking at him.

“What? Don’t tell me there’s- there’s something behind me, isn’t there?”  
“Well, yes.” A beat. “There’s the wall.”  
“Holy sh… Dude, I hate you. It’s official. I really, really hate you.”

The only reason why Beast wasn’t sticking their tongue out at him was because they still thought themselves a very dignified scholar. Andrew would bet his camera on it.

“Yes, and I’m glad you do. More seriously now, are you still cold?”  
“Why… Oh my god, you’re not cold. I can’t believe it man, of course I’m still cold, my clothes are wet and everything, it’s more like, how can you be not cold?”  
“Anthropomorphs of mammal descent, such as myself, usually have a much higher body temperature than human beings, and a greater resistance to cold.” Leave it to Beast to provide a serious, scientifically sound answer to a rhetorical question. “Although the fur does help.”  
Yeah, right. 

“Well, that’s all fine and dandy, but-”  
“Would you like to… Would you like to sit closer to me?”  
Andrew shot them a look meant to be full of gratitude but which probably made him look like a man seeing a ship sailing his way after three weeks on the shore of a deserted island.

Physical contact with another sentient being had never sounded so good in his life, and he had a _very_ strict no-hug policy.

“Is that… would that be okay?”  
“If I’m the one offering.”  
Oh, that smile was already warming his heart.  
“Yeah. Right. Well don’t mind if I do, then.”

Andrew huddled himself as close as he could.  
This was… unusual. A bit weird. Not in a bad way, just… not something they had done before. 

Then Beast reached out their arm and let it rest on his shoulder, and Andrew leaned a little closer still, and okay, maybe this was totally going against the aforementioned no-hug policy but it was warmth, and comfort, and Beast’s steady, calm breathing, and…  
“You smell… dude, you smell like a wet dog!”  
Shots fired.  
“And your hair reeks of conditioner.”  
A rather fair rebuttal.  


“Shea butter. Works wonders. You should try it, sometime.”  
“And get curls as fuzzy as yours? No, thank you, my mane is already hard to tame as it is.”  
“Hey, don’t compare my afro - which is magnificent, I’ll have you know - to that thing that grows on your head. There is like, absolutely no comparison possible between…”

They talked some more, until, lulled by the warmth and the low drawl of his friend, Andrew fell asleep.  
It was nice.

_ _ _

He woke up with his face comfortably buried in his friend’s sweater, their furry hand on his arm, an open sleeping bag spread across both of them.  
He almost went back to sleep but his half-closed eyes caught something of a light, so he opened them fully, and-

There was a woman there.

The camping stove had run out but he could see her, bright as day.

There was a woman there, floating a good meter above the floor.

A woman.

A blue, translucent woman.

A _ghost_.

Once the information reached his brain, Andrew’s first reflex was to scream and get to his feet, but Beast strengthened their grip and pulled him back against their chest.

“Shh,” said they. They weren’t looking at him; their golden gaze was fixed on her.  
She was staring back, and she was smiling  
“Beast,” whispered Andrew through gritted teeth, “Beast, there’s a… there’s a woman there, and she’s blue and floating in the air, please tell me that you’re seeing her too.”  
“Yes, I am,” answered Beast softly. “And I bet she can see us as well.” A beat. “Can you hear us, ghost?”

The woman did not react.  
Andrew barely believed his eyes, his ears, his _everything_.  
A ghost. A ghost! There was a ghost, there, right in front of them, and Beast was about to make small talk, like, he was trying to initiate contact, like that was a perfectly sane and reasonable thing to do!  
“Why did you just… No, I mean, why is there a ghost and, more important question, why am I the only one freaking out about it?”  
“Because there is no reason to panic, Andy. She just came to say hi. Maybe she was lonely? Alas, I don’t think she can hear us.”

The ghost was giggling now, daintily holding a hand against her mouth, although she didn’t make a sound.  
Andrew blinked, closed his eyes took a deep breath and counted to ten, then opened them again.  
Nope, she was still there - with long hair buzzed to the side and a dapper suit, silken vest and long dark coat, a flower crown dangling on her forehead and tattoos peeking from the sleeves of her shirt - a rather dandy ghost, then, but a ghost nevertheless.

“But… but she’s a ghost, right? That’s what she is, right?”  
“Yes, I think so.” Beast raised their free hand and waved; the woman nodded frantically and clapped her hands in silence. “Ah, look! She’s calling everyone to come and meet us.”  
“Every- why are you smiling, why are you calm?! Why, why are you saying this like it’s a good thing!”  
“Because it is. Look.”

In the air, the woman was… doing a courtesy, hand on her heart and all; and as she moved, Andrew could see that maybe her nose was a little pointy, maybe her ears were a little round. Maybe her nails were a little sharp as well, but once he saw the long, furless tail running from her back, he understood.  
This wasn’t a human ghost.  
That might have been why Beast was so damn calm about it.

She reached out a hand and opened her mouth.  
Andrew could not hear her but he felt it, through the cold, humid air, through Beast’s warmth and the lingering smell of wet fur: a thunderbolt feeling of pure, unaltered joy.

And now she was dancing, throwing her hands in the air, and her lips were parting, and perhaps she was singing.

Then - they came from the darkest corners, they came from holes in the parquet: blobs of blue lights, dozens of them, blue lights that poured through cracks in the walls and tears in the paintings, getting closer and shaping themselves into, well, other anthropomorphic ghosts.  
Scales, fur and wings, horns and claws, hooves and antlers, a blue-tinted parade of creatures Andrew would have never dreamt to see.

Some, like the woman, clearly looked like one animal or another; others, like Beast, were a little bit of everything.  
Some looked very old, and some looked very young.  
Some went dancing and singing with the woman - there was a hedgehog-like man she immediately took into a waltz; it was quite the endearing sight - and some came closer to them.

“They’re all wearing flower crowns,” whispered Andrew, “why?”  
“I do not know… Maybe they thought it looked nice?”

The youngest ones hid behind each other’s back, until Beast waved, and they waved back.  
Some pointed at Andrew; they talked among themselves, or so it seemed, without letting him out of their sight.  
And Andrew, all scared that he was, freed his hand from his duvet and waved at them. 

It was a small wave, shy and hesitant at first; but the children gasped and laughed and waved back, and Andrew giggled and waved some more, and they all waved back and forth.

“They used to put us in these sort of places,” said Beast after a while. “All of us, whenever they could catch us.” His voice was very soft, barely a whisper. Andrew looked up, but Beast was smiling at the children, pointing at him and back at the adults dancing in the air. “There were… they experimented on us, they tried to make us disappear. They really, really hated us.”  
“I’m sorry,” said Andrew. “I had no idea.”  
“Do not apologise for the sins of your forbearers. It’s all much better, now.” As they spoke they pulled him a little closer, and Andrew thought two things at once. He thought, ‘Yes, I do hope so.’ and ‘There is still a wrong, and I will make it right.’

Then he leaned back and enjoyed the show.

He did not know when sleep took him again. He remembered a lot of dancing, and laughing, and singing in silence; and maybe he sang too, at some point. The ghosts applauded, although they could not hear him - or maybe they did; Andrew had no idea. 

But he did not remember fear, or unease, or dread of any kind; one moment, there were friendly ghosts having a bit of fun, and the next birds were singing outside as the grey light of dawn poured through the open doors.

_ _ _

Andrew was awoken by the chirping of the birds and found himself neatly tucked in the comfortable weight of his sleeping bag.  
For a moment, he thought it had all been a dream. He could not possibly have spent the night watching ghosts of past anthropomorphs dancing in blue light one meter above the floor of an abandoned asylum.

And Beast was sleeping soundly, still sitting cross-legged against the wall, as if he had not moved all night.

All a dream, then.

Andrew almost shook them awake - come on, sleepy head, time for breakfast - and then he saw the little white flowers braided into a crown, dangling on their forehead.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading and the amazing [@johnnyfuckingappleseed](http://johnnyfuckingappleseed.tumblr.com/) for beta-reading and spell-checking this, as well as their constant hand-holding and encouragement. Feel free to let me know what you think in the comments!


End file.
